Rosie's adventures in knitting (and life)!

October 2008

October 30, 2008

Socktoberfest is coming to and end, and I'm really excited that I finished these socks on time. I knit two pairs of socks in one month! I really don't think I've ever knit socks this fast. The faster I can knit them, the easier it is for me to see their charm and why some people only knit socks.

I think it was a good choice for me to add the beads in. I'm glad it see it was much easier than I had thought. I'm looking forward to starting a larger project with beads!

These socks also mark the end of the Tofutsies Sock Club for me. The sock club was cool. I am a little tired of Tofutsies, but I did learn a handful of new techniques by sticking to the club patterns. A few of the new skills I have now are the Turkish Cast-on, knitting and attaching a folded cuff, and knitting with beads. I'm excited to use some of my other sock yarns now!

October 29, 2008

I just finished reading New Moon by Stephenie Meyer, the second installment of the Twilight Saga. I think I liked this book more than Santina. It was kind of uneventful and was a typical second book in a series. The first book is good and could stand alone if it had too. The second book has a ton of setup in it and not a whole lot of big events in the plot. Because of this I want to read the rest of the series. The second Harry Potter book kind of sucked compared to all of the others, and I think the case here may be pretty similar. All of the suicidal stuff with both Bella and Edward was a little annoying, but in a world where immortality is possible and an option to you, you'd probably place less value on your own life. I did like how Jacob's character was developed a lot more, and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with that. My biggest complain about this book was the extreme lack of Sexy Edward throughout much of the story. Edward is hot. Vampires are hot. EDWARD IS HOT!

October 27, 2008

I don't really know what the extra thing was that finally pushed me to take the Pinup Queen sweater pieces out of their hiding place. I finished knitting these pieces way back in 2005 and I have been moving them with me ever since. As time continued to go by I wanted to seam these pieces up less and less. This weekend I finally took the first step and laid them out. Then, I put the extra ball of yarn onto the winder so I could actually start seaming.

An entire day later I ended up with this! I just sat down and did it. There was no other way it was going to get done. I feel so good now. I am not the kind of knitter who has a billion projects going at one time. I start a project and finish it without straying too far away for the most part. At the most I probably have three projects going at a time, but never more than one large one. I had very low expectations for this sweater, because it had been so long and because I made a lot of juvenile knitting choices and mistakes when I knit it. I was pleasantly surprised when...

...I tried it on and it fit! I am pretty excited about this. I'm sure I've expanded since 2005, so I'm so excited that this isn't too small. I did block the sweater, so hopefully I didn't screw it up too much. The dimensions seem right. I guess we'll find out in a few days when it's dry!

October 24, 2008

I'm making good progress on these Blackberry Socks. These are the last socks for the Tofutsies club, and I am VERY excited about finishing that up. I really like this color, too, so that's making them even more fun to knit.

There are little black beads incorporated into the pattern on the ankle of the sock. This is my first project using beads, and it's been very easy so far! The weight of the beads also adds a nice drape to the fabric. I think I'm going to look into knitting a shawl or scarf with beads, something that would take advantage of that extra drape. I hope I get to finish these socks over the weekend!

October 23, 2008

One of my knitting resolutions for this year was to design my own pattern. I decided I wanted to knit a hat in the round with an image of Champy on it. I grew up in Plattsburgh, NY which sits right on Lake Champlain, so, naturally Champy, the lake monster was and still is a significant part of my life. I just really, really like Champy. If you need more education, you can read about Champy in Wikipedia, or here at the Lake Champlain Land Trust site.

Anyway, I found a picture of Champy that I liked (I believe that Champy is a plesiosaur, not a serpent) and used the nifty KnitPro to produce a small chart that I could use for a guide to make my chart. Then, I made some knitting graph paper in Excel that was the size I wanted my hat to be and translated my KnitPro pattern to the graph paper in Excel. I just used the paint bucket to shade each cell, it was very easy. I decided to make two Champy's, one on the front and one on the back and also spell out Champy's name twice to lessen yarn floats. Then I got to work knitting it. I was kind of dissappointed in the result at first. Some of the floats are so long that I ended up twist the floats in every few stitches or so. Some of these twists showed through and made the fabric look really puckered. I really didn't like it. Blocking helped a little bit. I want to knit another version of this hat before I write up the pattern in only two higher contrast colors and I won't twist in the floats. I will carefully let them hang and then tack them in after I'm finished knitting. After I'm finished with the 2nd version, I will write up the pattern and have it available for download. I'm pretty excited about that!

October 21, 2008

We the Living is Ayn Rand's first novel. It was a lot different than her other novels I have read. The story takes place in a real time and place - Soviet Russia in the 1920's. Kira, the heroine, is growing up with her family and trying to make a life for herself under Communist rule. She has the ideals and values typical of a protagonist in an Ayn Rand book. It was interesting reading Kira's story, because unlike the heroes in the other books, Kira's main devotion was to Leo, her lover, and not to herself. She wanted so badly for Leo to be able to live the life he wanted, that she was willing to sacrifice hers. I was kind of happy that Leo turned into such an a-hole by the end of the book to show Kira that her life is most important. It's too bad that she didn't get to see what would happen if she put herself first. This is also the only Ayn Rand novel that has a really sad ending and that caught me by surprise. I guess the setting didn't allow for any heroes rise up and save the day.

October 20, 2008

This past weekend I went down to the Washington DC area to visit Tim & Beth. It was really fun! I got to see their new place, go into DC for one day, watch the entire Spaced series, and eat some good food.

On Saturday, we took the Metro into DC and went to the Air & Space museum. I hadn't been since I was a little kid, and it was neat to see all of the space stuff. It really looks like all it takes to get into space is tin foil and duct tape.

After the museum we went over to the capitol building to walk up the stairs and go inside and do that whole thing. We were really disappointed, because we could only get this far. Apparently, they have closed the capitol building to they can build the stage for the 2009 inauguration. Do they really have to build a whole new stage for that? They are just going to take it down right after! Talk about an instance when they should use a scalpel or a hatchet, a money hatchet!!

I had a really good time with Tim & Beth this weekend. I'm glad Fakesgiving is coming up soon!

October 15, 2008

I just took these sock off of their blockers and I love the way they turned out. They fit me perfectly, and I really like the color and how the X's and O's stick out in the cables. These are the 2nd to last pair of my membership in last year's Tofutsies Sock Club.

I've also decided to participate in this year's Socktoberfest! There aren't really any rules except to celebrate socks! I have another pair I want to knit before the end of the month - the last pair for the Tofutsies club and then I will be done and able to move on to other sock designers and other sock yarn! I also think that this winter, I'm going to start wearing my socks!!

October 13, 2008

My Mom and Eric came to visit me this past weekend, and one of the things they wanted to do was go into Philadelphia and see the sights. I made a small list of things for us to do while we were there and a lot of them coincided with my goal to see the 7 wonders of Pennsylvania!

First up was the Liberty Bell. I had seen this one before, but that was before I made this list. Shortly after this picture was taken, someone reached out a touched the bell and got yelled at by the guard. I felt bad for the guy since it silenced the whole crowd and there wasn't really a clear sign.

Next was Independence Hall. This is where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution was signed and all of that stuff. We were lucky, because we were just hanging out outside of the Hall when a ranger came by and gave us free tickets for the next tour. The tour was really cool and I'm definitely glad we got to see this!

Next, we walked over to Washington Square to check out the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The flame was cool.

Next, we drove over to the other side of the city to see Robert Indiana's famous Love sculpture. It was a lot smaller in person than I realized!

Finally, we took a walk on the Ben Franklin Parkway and made our way to the Philadelphia Musuem of Art. We stopped to look at the really cool Rodin exhibit on the way and then did the obligatory climb up the stairs. These are the stairs that Rocky ran up in that famous scene. There were a lot of people running up the stairs and posing a la Rocky, and that was fun to watch. Since the museum is free on Sundays, we went inside and looked at one of the wings. This place is HUGE, but it is AWESOME and I can't wait to go back and look at more!

I had a really fun time with my mom this weekend, and I was pretty sad when I said goodbye this time. I'm glad I planned to go to Plattsburgh for a whole week in November, and I will see her and the rest of my family again soon!

October 06, 2008

The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett is the second book in the Discworld series. I thought I was hooked after reading The Color of Magic, but I know I am definitely hooked now. This book picked right up where the other one left off, and I thought this story line was much more cohesive than the last and it got to the point where I couldn't put it down! I love how the things that happen on the Discworld poke fun at things that happen on our world and also poke fun at the fantasy genre itself. I think my favorite bit was the part toward the end of the book where Rincewind performs magic for the first time and finally understands why wizards lost interest in sex. I have some other books lined up to read next, but I can't wait to go back to this series!